A Comedy of Donkey-Cratic Primary Voter Laws

Friends,
The most popular Democratic president, more popular than Senators Clinton and Obama who would be president, has yet to be seen in the interminable television debates or have had his name pasted on ballots or his person become a lightning rod for heated public caucus attention in the current presidential primary season of 2008. Being a very active president these last two terms he could not take himself away from his foreign and domestic policy projects unless something profound forced him home to present himself before the American people and the world press standing in the Oval Office of the White House.

In late November 2007, the President of the United States had to come home. He had not stepped foot in his official residence since late January 2001. It took a Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony to drag him, most reluctantly, back there. President Gore shook hands with George W. Bush, in a stiff and uncomfortable photo op. Even the figurehead for Vice President-in-Chief Dick Cheney’s administration, must honor pretenses and bask in another American’s proud accomplishment being acknowledged with one of the world’s highest honors for his ecological activism and documentary that turned and inconvenient truth about the dangers of climate change into a US national debate. If a majority of US voters now believed global warming was a real danger, even the White House-sitter, the former oil exec, big oil’s premier politico poster boy for C02, had to entertain this Nobel Peace Prize winner.

President Gore who now fights for butterflies was the one denied his presidency back in a close election in November 2000, because 6,607 Florida votes in liberal Palm Beach County precincts were mistakenly punched for right-wing Pat Buchanan because of an ill designed Butterfly Ballot created by some chairwoman of Palm Beach elections — a democrat.

Eight years later, something very wild “ass”-inine still stinks about the Democratic Party voting rules for most states. You can vote twice on the same day in Texas for the primary “and” the evening caucus. You can vote twice in Washington State but on different days. The Democrat controlled state government even spends millions of dollars manufacturing absentee and regular ballots for you. The Washington State Caucus held on 9 February saw Obama win 66.7 to Clinton’s 32.2 percent of the vote — a difference of 33.5 percent. The primary vote held on 19 February saw Clinton come within 9.5 percent of taking Washington back from Obama. The Democratic Party rules say the primary vote adding up to 354,112 (Obama) 315,744 (Clinton) didn’t count. Only those who caucused numbering a paltry 13,209 (Obama) 6,409 (Clinton) counted.

What could be more Jackass-o-cratic? A waste of millions of dollars and 650,238 voters rendered invalid against a scrawny host of 19,618 legitimized by caucus.

Why such a variance in voter participation?

A small but lively gaggle of alpha male and female extroverts who populate the sharpest left and right edges of political extremes just love a caucus where you stare down your neighbors and get a chance to pontificate or soap box your views. My direct experience of noisy, crowded caucuses says that people of a more passive, retiring and shy nature, are put off by all the histrionics and peer pressure hysteria. Moreover, many people can’t leave their jobs to caucus. A lot of the sick, enfeebled or elderly don’t go because they don’t have the stamina to tolerate the hubbub or can’t stand on their feet that long. They would rather cast their vote absentee and in private. My 80-year-old mother is one of these. She voted her absentee ballot for the Washington State primary instead of attending the caucus only to discover later that her vote meant zilch.

Even a donkey with red white and blue streamers tied to its jack-rabbity long ears should know that representative democracy is not at work here.

Democrat pompous polls and circumstance will only get more wild-ass weird now that Hillary Clinton pulled off a classic Clintonian “comeback kid” event last night (4 March 2008). The Obama-juggernaut was broken after an 11-election winning streak after Super Tuesday (5 February), of which four were Obama-friendly caucus elections. She WON the Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island primaries only losing the Vermont primary to Obama and the Texas caucus by a surprisingly tight two percentage points. The latter count is being disputed by Clintonites who claim they were locked out of caucuses by Obamite-voting precinct leaders.

This run for the Democratic nomination will not be over soon. Clinton broke Obama’s winning streak and proved once again that she wins the important big states a democrat must win to beat the Republicans in November: those winner-take-all horde of electoral college votes of California, Florida, Ohio, Texas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Tennessee. Pennsylvania is the next primary battle state and it is Clinton country — the roost of rust belt, the NAFTA orphanage, the bear market den of beer drinking Dems.

She’ll probably win there too.

After Pennsylvania comes a rehash of that hallowed Democratic Party tradition of playing Demo-loose burro with the party rules. A financially burdensome repeat of Michigan and Florida primaries will follow in June at the latest. Clinton won both handily even when the votes were not accepted. The states broke Democrat party rules scheduling their primaries earlier than Super Tuesday allowed, back on 15 and 29 January respectively. Obama took his name off the Michigan ballot, but Clinton did not (clever girl). Obama kept his name on the Florida ballot (clever boy).

Before Pennsylvania, the previous elections totaled 11 caucuses to 15 primaries. The final leg of primaries sees the caucus advantage to Obama tank with only one caucus to nine more primary elections — advantage Clinton. Add two more primaries if party law be fudged to allow Michigan and Florida in rematch.

Would a resurgent Nixonian Clinton on the warpath going negative on a besieged Barack Obamagogue for lofty speech and little policy substance catch a bigger piece of the primary voter pie with or without a Michigan-Florida redux? I predict this race goes on to a split decision at its end. Imagine the future scenario of an Old West shootout in search of breaking a Mexican Standoff on the delegate floor of the Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado.

Unthinkable.

In the “ass” end of the primary season, I predict the President of the United States will have to stop the insanity. I mean, the one that was robbed by donkeys playing with butterflies back in Florida in 2000. President Al Gore is the most influential of the supreme super-duper donkey-demo-delegates. He will broker a solution in June at the latest that will see either an Obama-Clinton, or Clinton-Obama compromise ticket presented before the convention.Gore will suggest whoever is surging at the end of the primary season should win a berth at the top of the ticket going against McCain in November. This “Surge” the anti-war Democratic Party takes very seriously. The candidate who is nosing ahead at the end of the photo finish has the better chance of being “Gored.”

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John Hogue

"For real democracy to flower, you first need a real humanity." - John Hogue bio. Author of 20 books in 19 languages, "Rogue" scholar, world authority on Nostradamus and the prophetic traditions of the world.